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Dieting and Osteoporosis
It should be common knowledge by now that constant dieting and yo-yo dieting are poor concepts to live by. Importantly, a study by the USDA's agricultural Research Service(ARS) recently (April, 1999) showed that women who ate simply to avoid weight gain had an increased risk for osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a condition of bone mass loss that eventually results in fractures.

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Calcium
and Vitamin D - and Breast Cancer

In
1993 and 1995 a total of over 30,000 women over 45 years of age participated
in The Women's Health Study, a large-scale, long term study involving thousands
of women across the United States. The participants provided medical history,
lifestyle factors (such as smoking or exercise), and answered a detailed
dietary questionnaire (Arch Intern Med 2007;167(10):1050-1059). Participants
reported on over 100 different foods, beverages, and supplement items such
as calcium and vitamin D and estimated their average intake over the previous
12 months.

Over
10,000 premenopausal women and over 20,000 postmenopausal women were then
recontacted yearly for ten years in order to fill out followup questionnaires.
These included questions about whether the participants had been diagnosed
with breast cancer. If they had been diagnosed, the researchers performing
the study sought permission to analyze their medical records pertaining
to their cancer.

For
those women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer, the scientists looked
closely at their intake of calcium and vitamin D from all sources, including
dairy products, supplements, and other sources. They then related that
information to the types of breast cancer each woman had as well as other,
more common risk factors for breast cancer.

They
found that those premenopausal women who consumed more total calcium and
vitamin D had a lower risk of breast cancer, with the greatest effects
seen on the risk of the more aggressive types of breast cancers.

On
the other hand, calcium and vitamin D did not appear to have any effect
on postmenopausal women's risk. The researchers note, however, that it's
common for postmenopausal women to not be getting enough calcium and vitamin
D in their diets.

What
this means for you

While
more research is needed, your take-home message is a reminder that most
women aren't getting enough calcium in their diets. (Vitamin D is often
packaged with calcium because it helps the calcium be absorbed more readily
into the body.) I recommend that all my female patients take a calcium
supplement every day to prevent osteoporosis. Now it may help prevent breast
cancer, too.